The Story is the Thing
November 13, 2006 -- I wanted to take this opportunity to address the expectations of watch companies who invite journalists to events. I get invited to things all over the world and sometimes there is an expectation that just because I go to an event, something has to appear in the magazine about the event.
Things do not work like this for me and InSync -- it all really depends on the story -- if the story is good and worth covering, it will get the coverage it deserves. It may work differently for some of the other watch magazines around the world, but for us it's really all about the story, as it is for any legitimate magazine. The onus is on manufacturers to do interesting things and produce interesting product.
I have been invited to and attended some events and factory visits where there was nothing interesting, so no story appeared in InSync -- that's just the way it goes sometimes.
Last week was a busy one. I went to see Thomas Morf at the Carl F. Bucherer factory in Lengnau. It was great to see Thomas and I was really impressed with Bucherer's facility there. I got a chance to see how the TravelTech case is manufactured and, boy, is it complicated. InSync will be putting this watch to a wear test soon.
I also got a chance to ride motorcycle with Michel Nieto, president of Baume & Mercier worldwide. We had a great time, running up to St. Cergue and back.
Then, on Thursday, I was invited to the Grand Prix of Watchmaking and it was quite an event. Like the movie's Oscars, the best and the brightest of the industry showed up to honor each other. Francois-Paul Journe went home with the top prize, which was fitting.
I went to the dinner as a guest of Thierry Nataf at Zenith and it was a great time. I saw a lot of people who I hadn't see in a while. I ran into Luigi Macaluso and his son, Stefano, from Girard-Perregaux, Daniel Bolognesi from Chopard (he rode the Ducati to take us to Chopard on our first motorcycle tour of Switzerland), Maurice Spiri who used to work at G-P but now works at Roger Dubuis (and also was on that first ride), Hublot's Jean-Claude Biver, DeWitt's Simon De Witt, the guys from BNB Concept, Francois-Paul Journe, Jean-Christophe Babin and Stefan Linder from TAG and many more. I got to hang out with Casey Bayandor and his lovely wife, Veronique, as well as Malcolm Lakin and Kate Walter, Pierre and Philippe Maillard and more. It was a fun night all around.
On Friday of last week, I went to an enamelists's workshop for a story in InSync, then went to a world premiere lunch introducing a new watch from Jean Dunand. I was the only journalist there from the USA so the information on the new watch will be exclulsive to InSync until January 2007.
This week, I am finishing up a bunch of assignments. I have a Ducati Sport Classic GT1000 on loan from the factory for a story in V12 magazine in Russia. I am going over lunch to take some pictures of the bike in the towns around here: Coppet, Genthod, Versoix and others. Wish me luck.